My Angel
by CCCCinnamonLips
Summary: I had watched her before, but I never dreamed that I could be close to that angel.


**Title**: My Angel

**Pairing**: Daire

**Rating**: PG-13

**Status**: One-Shot

Summary:

**Disclaimer**: I don't own LOST, or any of it's characters. I'm using them all at the mercy of their wonderful, amazing, brilliant creators. Besides, I'm much too poor to sue.

I was always mesmerized by the way she looked, the way she moved. Her blonde hair framed her pale skin to give her a heavenly glow. She looked like an angel, and that's what I called her. My angel. I couldn't help but watch her go about her daily tasks with a wonder. Talking to people, taking care of Aaron. I had only been able to talk to her directly twice. Once I was piss drunk, and didn't know much of what I was saying. The other, I was just offering to fix her roof, but I was alert, and preserved in my mind every word that she said to me, but Charlie had intruded, and my moment had ended.

I still loved Penny, but I had been without her for so long. I was alone for so long. I was starting to feel alone inside. I didn't think that was possible. I never expected anything to come of my obsession with that angel anyway, she never seemed to notice me. I just watched her in her happiness.

Nothing ever seemed to bring her down. Her happiness and the happiness of her child seemed to be the only thing that mattered in the world. That, and perhaps Charlie, but that union wasn't all it was cracked up to be. The happy family they portrayed had fooled me, along with the rest of the island,, but the truth was revealed to me in a way I will never forget.

As wonderful as it was to be around people, I had gotten used to the solitude of the hatch, and sometimes longed for a quiet place to think when the chatter of the island community surrounded me. There was no chance of finding a silent strip of beach without taking an extensive trip, so every so often, I would go a ways into the jungle where the fruit trees were barren, and people rarely visited.

This time, I had heard three separate couples have heated arguments, and was feeling a need to be alone. Bernard and Rose were having control issues again, Jin and Sun were shouting at each other not far away, and Nikki and Paulo were in disagreement over the role they were playing on the island. I needed a break.

I was about ten meters from my usual spot under a fig tree, when something stopped me. There was a small sound from behind the tree. It sounded like a mix between a sniffle and a whimper. It was far from threatening. It sounded like someone was stifling sobs.

I should have turned around, gone somewhere else, listened to my instincts and left them alone.

But I didn't.

I walked towards them, careful not to startle whoever it was. As I rounded the tree, they looked up at me.

Her long blonde hair was disheveled, but still curled perfectly down to her shoulders. Her face was red and puffy, but it seemed to only to highlight her sky blue eyes. Her mouth hung slightly open as she released the hem of her shirt from her hands. She had been twisting it around her delicate fingers, and was stretching the elastic of the simple blue tank top.

She quickly shut her mouth, and began wiping the tears from her face and eyes. She began to stand as she spoke in a cracking whisper.

"Oh... I'm... I'm sorry... I'm going back to the beach... I didn't know anyone came here..."

Before she could stand all the way, I bent down to her, and placed my hand on her shoulder. I followed her gaze, not letting her avoid eye contact like she wanted to. I didn't know this woman very well, but I knew that she didn't deserve to be crying alone in the jungle.

"Claire, you've got nothing to be sorry about. Sit back down." I motioned towards the ground under the tree.

She looked at my hand and looked back at me, but continued to stand, insisting that she was at fault somehow, and should be leaving. But her arguments were losing strength, and I could see that she didn't want to fight this anymore. Her voice trailed off into silence, and she looked back into my eyes. For a second, I couldn't see anything in those eyes that would explain her current position, but as she looked at me, her guard slowly came down. I began to see the pain that she was feeling. Bit by bit her entire visage started to show everything that she had been keeping from everyone else. She slowly sank to the ground, and I sat next to her, never letting go of her gaze.

She looked back down into her lap, choking back her tears. She looked over to me, obviously wanting me to say something. I obliged.

"Would you like to tell me what's wrong?"

"Not really, but I suppose it might help." She sighed and took a moment before she continued.

"Whatever you think, sister." I looked at the side of her face as she thought deeply. I didn't know what she was thinking, but I knew better than to interrupt her. She started in a whisper addressed more to her hands than to me.

"It's... It's just everything. I... I don't know if I'm doing the right thing staying with Charlie. He loves me, I know that, and he loves Aaron, but..."

She didn't want to finish her sentence. I didn't press it. If she wanted to talk, she would, I couldn't make her tell me her issues with Charlie if she wasn't willing to tell me them. I didn't know either of them well, and was far from a force in their relationship.

She took a deep breath, made up her mind, and went on.

"He gives me unwarranted parenting advice, he's never given me a reason to trust him before, and he's incredibly jealous. I just... I just don't know if I want that kind of man helping me raise my son."

I was a bit shocked by her bluntness. I had trouble believing that their relationship was this flawed. They had looked so happy together. I knew he cared about her and her baby, but I had assumed she cared about him just as much.

I didn't say anything, as I wasn't sure if she wanted an answer from me. A few seconds passed, and she sighed again, and rested her head on my shoulder.

I started a little, but she didn't move. This symbol of intimacy seemed too sudden, but somehow felt right. She had opened up to me, and I had listed, it was logical that we would be closer than we had been a few minutes previous.

I cautiously put my arm around her, drawing her in closer. She turned her head to my shoulder, and began to cry again, but softer this time. I rubbed circles on her shoulder with my thumb and whispered meaningless words of reassurance to the top of her head.

She seemed to have gotten it out of her system, but we stayed that way for a few minutes. She slowly lifted her head off of my now wet shoulder, looking up at me. I looked back at her, unsure of what exactly the look in her eyes meant. She lifted her arm up, and put it on my shoulder, close to my neck. This time, I didn't need to try to keep her eye contact. We both looked each other right in the eye, barely blinking. It seemed like we were closer together than we had been before.

I lowered my head towards her as she lifted hers toward me. Our lips met slowly, in a lighter kiss than I thought was possible. We didn't deepen it, but stayed locked together for a few seconds before she broke the kiss. We stared into each other's eyes again, neither of us sure what to do next.

I looked at the young woman before me, and thought of everything I had seen her do and heard her say. She didn't love him. If she loved him, she wouldn't be here now. She wouldn't have kissed me. She wouldn't have told me all her doubts of him. All of the times I had watched her, a strange feeling had started in the pit of my stomach, but that was nothing compared to the sensation I was experiencing now. I felt like my heart would beat right out of my chest, and my face felt hotter than the sun.

I lowered my face back to hers, kissing her harder than before. She responded immediately, deepening it even further. I wrapped my free arm around her waist and pulled her even closer to me. She shifted so that she was on her knees, as I slowly parted her lips with my tongue. I pulled back for a second, and maneuvered her onto my lap, moving my hands to her waist. She put hers behind my head, and I could feel her exhale on my cheek as I started kissing her neck.

I was starting to move my hand up to entwine my fingers in her golden hair, when she started to whisper again.

"Desmond... Desmond, we have to stop... please..."

It was clear in her voice that she didn't want to stop, but I pulled back, and rested my forehead against hers. She spoke again.

"I can't, I can't do this now. I want to, I know I want to, but I just... I just can't."

"I understand." I whispered, and started to release her. She made no immediate effort to leave, but stayed on my lap, with her fingers in my hair. After a minute, she started to stand, whispering that she was sorry.

She left quickly, looking back at me only once. I stayed leaning against the tree, watching the trees where she had left me. Those few minutes would be in my memory for a long time, I was sure. But watching her go after she had said that she wanted to stay would be with me even longer. I didn't know if she loved me, I didn't know if there had really been anything there but lust. All I knew was that I had been close to her and it was more than I could have imagined. I knew I should have been guilty, I had snogged another man's woman. I knew how much that would hurt. But I wasn't guilty. I felt a million different things. But not guilt. I knew she wasn't happy with him, I knew from her words, and I felt it in her kiss. I sat at that tree for an hour, remembering and savoring the kiss of my angel.


End file.
